81–90 of 467 posts
Leaving Germany burning lignite (halfway between peat moss and coal) and buying natural gas from Russia. The worst of both worlds.
I don’t understand this move with Putin shutting off gas to flex. It’s going to be a very cold, very expensive winter for the Germans.
This is insane to me. Nuclear is the best long-term option for ecologically-friendly energy generation. This is absolutely a bad move, and the coal industry has done a great job of demonizing nuclear power.
We experienced fallout from Chernobyl (radiation levels of wild boar meat and some mushrooms are still under surveillance today) and we were designated nuclear ground zero in case that the Soviets tried to invade Europe. What attitude towards all things nuclear do you expect to arise from that?
I am always amazed how Germans are irrational about nuclear while nearby countries have a mostly pragmatic attitude. Even in Belgium the nuclear phase out is fake and every politician knows it can not be enforced until Netherlands build two new nuclear powerplants 20 years from now.
Leaving Germany burning lignite (halfway between peat moss and coal) and buying natural gas from Russia. The worst of both worlds.
I don’t understand this move with Putin shutting off gas to flex. It’s going to be a very cold, very expensive winter for the Germans.
I am afraid this thread is going to be heavy on strongly held opinions and very light on facts and figures. In a futile attempt to compensate, here is the history of gross electricity production in Germany [1]. And here is the electricity import/export statistics [2]. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Energymi... [2] https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Infografiken/Energie/stroma...
"A good narrative soundly beats even the best data."
[1]https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/01/how-narratives-influe...
I am afraid this thread is going to be heavy on strongly held opinions and very light on facts and figures. In a futile attempt to compensate, here is the history of gross electricity production in Germany [1]. And here is the electricity import/export statistics [2]. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Energymi... [2] https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Infografiken/Energie/stroma...
I am afraid this thread is going to be heavy on strongly held opinions and very light on facts and figures. In a futile attempt to compensate, here is the history of gross electricity production in Germany [1]. And here is the electricity import/export statistics [2]. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Energymi... [2] https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Infografiken/Energie/stroma...
So these charts that you show only demonstrate that Germany was first to jump on wind and solar production. Great for them, but now wind and solar in neighbouring countries are much less profitable when they'd be less correlated to Germany's huge wind and solar capacity.
Perfect play in a game-theoretic setting, but damaging to the neighbours and the actual goal of CO2 reduction.
Now, let's review some live data: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE
The sentiment on HN on this topic has traditionally been negative, and comments that support the move get downvoted. The fear of nuclear energy is deeply rooted in Germany and cannot be simply ignored. The "Anti AKW" (anti nuclear power) movement was huge since the 80s, it predates the fear of global warming, and it was at the core of what became the Green party. And Merkel, who has a doctorate quantum chemistry, cam…
This is insane to me. Nuclear is the best long-term option for ecologically-friendly energy generation. This is absolutely a bad move, and the coal industry has done a great job of demonizing nuclear power.
> Germany intends to take all coal-fired generation offline by 2038 Good if they actually mean it maybe? > leading to a likely increase in renewable-power assets in the long term... Yet in the short term, coal is helping to bridge the supply gap. This just seems asinine. But what do I know... Is there something impassably / chronically dangerous about nuclear power or is it just public fear that pushes us away from i…
And yes, nuclear power can be dangerous as Chernobyl and Fukushima have shown. Those dangers could probably be addressed by new reactors, but those are very expensive. The big problem are the existing old reactors. They are not as safe and require a lot of maintenance. A few years ago, Germany only had 4 nuclear power plants running through the whole winter as 4 others were down for longer maintenance. Then there is the problem where to plut all the nuclear waste, Germany doesn't have a long-term storage facility (though search started in the 80ies).
I am afraid this thread is going to be heavy on strongly held opinions and very light on facts and figures. In a futile attempt to compensate, here is the history of gross electricity production in Germany [1]. And here is the electricity import/export statistics [2]. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Energymi... [2] https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Infografiken/Energie/stroma...
Germany's wind and solar is only possible because neighbouring countries compensate for when there's no wind and sun; which happen a lot of the time. On top of that wind and solar production must be bought first on the EU market, effectively ruining CO2-free capital that was there beforehand (read: nuclear). So these charts that you show only demonstrate that Germany was first to jump on wind and solar production. Gr…
This is insane to me. Nuclear is the best long-term option for ecologically-friendly energy generation. This is absolutely a bad move, and the coal industry has done a great job of demonizing nuclear power.
Well, Germany's wind was done without a thought about how to implement storage; it did not have to; it was a perfect egotistic game-theoretic play: The EU energy market mandates that wind and solar production must be bought before everything else. What happens at the moment is France's nuclear reduces production when Germany's wind is over-producing; there is no energy storage at all. So right now, on top of wind use…
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3780688-france-shuts-down-nucl...